Hamas comments one bright spot 15 years after Madrid

MADRID, Jan 11 (Reuters) Palestinian and Israeli moderates praised an acknowledgement of Israel's existence by the exiled head of Hamas but were gloomy about the chances of a settlement 15 years after peace talks began in Madrid.

Softening a previous refusal to accept the Jewish state's existence, Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal told Reuters yesterday, ''there will remain a state called Israel'' and said the Jewish state's existence was a matter of fact.

Shlomo Ben-Ami, a former Israeli foreign minister, described Meshaal's comments as very important.

''I trust that Hamas is on its way to meeting the requirements of the international community. The problem is that if we do not reach out to them, history will not be made,'' he told Reuters on the sidelines of a conference in Madrid.

''(Israel's) response should be to encourage ... but I have my doubts they will do that,'' said Ben-Ami who was a delegate at the Madrid conference in late 1991 that brought Israel and its regional foes face-to-face for the first time.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert shrugged off Meshaal's comments during a trip to Beijing.

The statement from Hamas's exiled leader appeared to be clearest statement by the Islamist group on its attitude towards the state it previously said had no right to exist.

Israel and Western governments have put financial sanctions on the Hamas-led Palestinian government for refusing to recognise Israel, renounce violence and accept past peace accords. The embargo has hit the Palestinian economy hard.

''BRIDGE DIVISIONS'' Palestinian lawmaker Hanan Ashrawi said Meshaal's words would help bridge divisions between the Hamas-led Palestinian government and Fatah, led by President Mahmoud Abbas, and the attempts to form a unified Palestinian government.

''I think that Hamas is showing more and more pragmatism, the more convergence there is on issues the easier it is to share power,'' Ashrawi, the Palestinian spokeswoman at the original Madrid conference, told Reuters.

The two-day conference in the Spanish capital aims to revive the defunct peace process.

Foreign ministers from European countries like Spain, Norway, Sweden and Denmark are here but senior representatives from the conflict's main players have stayed away.

The 1991 talks ended without concrete proposals but laid the ground for the Oslo Accords - a framework peace deal - a treaty between Israel and Jordan, and a decade of negotiations that came tantalisingly close to a peace settlement.

Conference speakers said there were few bright spots in the current crisis, characterised by unilateralism and growing extremism on both sides.

''We believe that the time has come to abandon the gradual approach ... so the enemies of peace can't derail the process as they have in the past,'' former Jordanian Prime Minister Abdel Salam Majali told the conference.

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